Beck

Beck started his career as a chameleon, inhabiting then abandoning personas and genres as routinely as a snake sheds its skin. Eventually, the shifts from folkie to bluesman to alt-rocker to rapper to funked up sex crooner and beyond gave way to a steady stream of albums offering variations on a similar theme: the kinda folky, kinda blues-y, kinda funky, kinda rockin' singer/songwriter record. When asked about this shift in sound, Beck's answer was complicated. Not only does he think he took critiques of his early irreverent approach as being ironic "too much to heart," but he revealed that "what comes out on the album doesn't necessarily represent what I've been working on in the studio for the past few years."

With the release of his newest album, Modern Guilt, behind him, I spoke to Beck the day after an earthquake hit his hometown of Los Angeles. In addition to explaining his post-Sea Change transformation, he talked about working with Jamie Lidell, how "Loser" was a side project, and why he avoided traditional singer/songwriter material in the first place.

Pitchfork: How are you doing? Did you suffer any damage from the earthquake?

Beck: Yeah, no damage. It was weird. The earthquake hit, and then I went outside and got stung by a yellow jacket. There was a hive. I was on tour in Europe, and they built the hive while I was gone. I just found it, and I think the earthquake spooked them. Then I got bit. Do they bite or sting?

Pitchfork: I think they sting. They're bees.

Beck: Yeah, right. It hurt like fucking hell. It swelled up. There was green venom coming out. It was crazy.Pitchfork: Green venom?!

Beck: Yeah, it was weird! I don't know if it was a wasp or a yellow jacket. It definitely wasn't a bee. It was some kind of weird stuff.Pitchfork: Between how quickly Modern Guilt came out after being announced and things like the sticker pack for The Information that kept it from charting properly in the UK, it seems that you like playing around with different ways for people to experience your records. Is that a result of boredom after 20 years of releasing music, or does that come from something else?

Beck: You get an idea and go with it. There's no great plan. I used to have to turn in a record about 10 months before they put it out. It was 10 to six months. It's weird that it seems so [different] lately, like it's such a new thing, but it really isn't: Cut your single on Tuesday, play it by Friday, and then next week, you're a star. You know, I've never had that, but I do like when people take the music more seriously. Because I think it's sort of arbitrary the way [the business] evolved. Pitchfork: Do you have any thoughts about interesting release methods you'd like to try?

Beck: You know, I've talked to other musicians about that. I did cut a record-- or, I attempted to cut a record-- straight to vinyl.Pitchfork: What happened with that?

Beck: I think I'm going to go back and try it again. It was an experiment.

Pitchfork: That recording session you had with Jamie Lidell sounded interesting.

Beck: Yeah, yeah-- he played on that.

Pitchfork: That was the one that was cut straight to vinyl?

Beck: Yeah.Pitchfork: Will it ever see the light of day?

Beck: I don't know. I mean, there are some good things in there. We did try to do-- straight to vinyl-- a complete album, but I doubt [it will come out]. But we did mess around, recorded demos.

Pitchfork: It was cool to hear that you and he were touring together a while ago. He seems like a man after your own heart, in a lot of ways.

Beck: Oh, he's great.

Pitchfork: Did you know his music beforehand?

Beck: I didn't. I had his record. I didn't know Super_Collider, but I was fascinated by the juxtaposition. I mean, where was that voice?

Pitchfork: Yeah, and he's such a performer, too. Were you pleasantly surprised by his onstage persona, or had you seen him perform before you toured together?

Beck: I had maybe seen him once, but I definitely hadn't spent time with him, like on tour. The record is great. I really like the sound, the production across the record, but it's much more impressive [live].

Pitchfork: In the past, you've collaborated frequently with producers-- like Nigel Godrich, the Dust Brothers, and now Danger Mouse-- but it seems like recently you're collaborating more with fellow musicians, doing stuff with Devendra Banhart and featuring Cat Power on the new record. What's behind this increase in collaboration?

Beck: Asking them! I didn't have the confidence to ask before, not that I have this great confidence [now]. I think it's the nature of what I do. I always wanted to be in a band. Maybe there's a bit of a longing, too, a longing to be a part of a group, or, you know, have that interaction. Most of the time I'm on my own. I don't really have anybody to work off of. It's sort of a novelty for me to have someone else play guitar, or play bass, or play background.Pitchfork: Do you think of yourself as a melancholy person at all?

Beck: Um, no. I don't think so. I've never really been asked that! I'd have to ask somebody else.Pitchfork: It just seems like Sea Change signaled a change of direction for you in terms of things being a little bit more straightforward, a little bit more somber at times.

Beck: You know, it's funny. There wasn't really a change at all. What happened was that I had these kinds of songs-- some of the songs on that record were pretty old-- that I'd just been keeping to myself: introspective or more personal. Those were the kinds of songs I would play in the middle of the show. I'd try to throw a couple of them in. I just remember the audience kind of disregarding them, or moshing, or throwing things. Just because those were the kinds of persons that came out. It was really the first record [Mellow Gold--Ed.]: I think a lot of people didn't know they became involved with the side project.

Pitchfork: So "Loser" was a side project?

Beck: Oh yeah.

Pitchfork: How so?

Beck: The sound of Sea Change was a little more One Foot in the Grave and more representative of what I was doing [in the early days]. You'd come to the shows and you'd hear a Skip James cover, a Blind Willie Johnson cover. Throw in a Big Star cover, maybe a Woody Guthrie song, and a couple of originals. That would have been representative. I think I kept that in the background. "Ramshackle": That was a song that was part of an album that I actually recorded the year before I did Odelay. That was-- I think you would hear it, and you wouldn't think it sounded that different-- a little bit more informal. It's a thing I've been doing for a long time.

You have to understand: I came up in the late-1980s downtown L.A. [scene]. A lot of the stuff that had anything that might strike you as singer/songwriter, it was almost like you'd get a violent reaction [laughs], you know? In an age that has Bright Eyes, I think that might be hard to conceptualize, but it really was [the case]. I mean, you'd come out with a guitar, and the room would feel-- I mean, you'd see people leaving. For a long, long time, that was something that happened.Pitchfork: A lot of those early records, like Odelay and Midnite Vultures, make very clear statements of purpose, partially because they're so different from each other. Now that you're embracing the singer/songwriter mode a little bit more, do you find it harder to make a statement with each individual record?

Beck: I used to get heavily criticized for being kind of ironic, or a joker. I just felt alienated by that, because I thought what I was doing was more Dada, absurdist, or just trying to do something that subverted. Maybe I took that too much to heart, but I started thinking a little more, and I had plenty of things to say that moved the ball a little. I also tend to see things I do as either fresh or something I can fall back on, where it feels safe, which I tend to get rid of to see what I can do without it. "There has to be some song where I'm rapping, at least!" And then there came a point where I was like, "What if I do a record where there isn't any of that?"Pitchfork: Does either of those modes-- the absurd/Dadaist mode or the singer/songwriter mode-- feel more quintessentially yourself? Do you feel like you have a quintessential self?

Beck: Oh, yeah, sure. My first instinct is the song that's kind of weird, but what I tend to do these days is try to simplify it. I guess that's what it would be. Maybe some of those in that time--

Pitchfork: When you say "that time," you mean Sea Change?

Beck: Yeah, trying to get back to that concept felt a little scarier than, say, something so plain that isn't ambivalent. Trying to get to that simplicity, trying to get to something that's so basic: Those are the hardest songs to write. Maybe that's what it was: The challenge of writing those songs. You can't hide behind anything clever. It's really plain. Those are the scary songs to write. You can't deflect with anything. It sort of became a challenge.Pitchfork: Are there fears you have or crutches you'd like to get over even now?

Beck: Sure, yeah, there's always been. The weird thing is, I'm always recording different things. What comes out on the album doesn't necessarily represent what I've been working on in the studio for the past few years. Maybe I'll just kind of get into that for a while, do some more experimenting.

Pitchfork: Do you have plans to throw any kinks in the circuitry when you go on tour this fall? Are you going to bring the last tour's puppets back?

Beck: This tour, I really tried to simplify it in another way. I tried to get rid of anything I felt was a gimmick. Not that-- I mean, you are onstage, after all, and you have to do something that makes it fun for the audience. We did a tour along with the main tour that we did for the last record, just showing up at little coffeehouses, small clubs. We didn't have any lights. We didn't have any crew. The people setting up were me and the band. We didn't have equipment or any of that stuff. We'd use whatever the club had. Those are by far the best shows. Everyone's free to play. We didn't feel any pressure.

Pitchfork: Is that going to be the style of your new shows?

Beck: I think so, yeah. Take away some of the distractions.Pitchfork: Well, that's all I've got. Take care of your bug sting, whatever it turns out to be.

Beck: Yeah, absolutely. It was all swollen up, but it looks better now. It definitely has venom still pumping through my veins, though.

Pitchfork: Maybe suck it out!

Beck: You know, I can't get to my foot like that.Pitchfork: Oh, it's on your foot?

Beck: Yeah, my foot! It hurt like hell. I mean, I've broken my arm before, but this was up there in terms of pain.